2009 has been a hard year for us on many levels. Our church plant was struggling and we had to shut down for a couple of months. The business had troubles due to lack of contracts and we had to lay off our employees for a period of time (this is hard when you know some of them have kids... sigh), we battle the dark depression both of us but not at the same time (thank goodness)... this is only to mention a few things that was going on.

But this brought us close to God as well which is VERY good.

In the last month, we have been blessed twice with our finances. It's incredible what God can do.

Okay to give you a bit of perspective, let me tell you about the business. We are in the IT world building databases for clients in the area. Well back int he Spring 2009, the federal government has changed the rules concerning contracting. Back then we wanted to release LobsterNetwork so we didn't worry too much when we were not getting calls for contracts. All three employees were working on LobsterNetwork and that's what we wanted. But then September arrived and we sensed something was bizarre. No calls. Now to think about it - it was a while since we had calls... Mmmm! Not good. We learned about the changes then. We had to layoff our guys. Sad time. Very hard time. OUCH!

But then contracts came in. We re-hired the guys. Problem is the money don't usually come until a month or two later. Mostly a month later. So we are still in a thight spot even though we have contracts. We are getting out of it slowly but man it though.

Recently, we had a business bill to pay. But how should we pay it when the money is low. We pay the employees no worries about it. We usually take the hit as we pass the employees first. So we had that bill to pay which was about 1500$ or so. I know about the bill but not the amount. One day I go to the mail and bring back an envelop from the government for the business. Inside it a refund cheque for the GST. Believe it or not the amount is 5$ less than the bill we had to pay. God is so good. We had forgotten about the refund we were supposed to get.... and it arrived exactly when we needed it. Amazing!

It will be taxes season soon here in Canada. So since we know the amount of our donations, we did a draft to see how much would we owe in taxes. We had put aside some money back in 2009 to cover this but when times were hard we had to use some of it. So we needed to know how bad the situation was. So we do the taxes and we just couldn't believe our eyes. I was emotional at that point. A good emotional that is. Why? Because it turns out that we don't owe much but instead we shall receive. Unbelievable. God is indeed good and takes care of us.

Then because we are still not out of the thight spot we were in we talked about the essential things we needed to buy for homeschooling. There was MathUSee books for Alexandre and Jérémy (we already have Dominic's book), Easy Grammar for Alexandre as well as some French things to get for Alexandre and Dominic. Oh and don't forget the renewal for RVHEA and Homeschool Legal Defense. So that were the basic things we needed to get. I also had some things I had accumulate from previously. And I was blessed with good things from my first year on The TOS Homeschool Crew. Well about a week ago I was asked if I could rejoin the crew for the remaining of the year since some people have dropped off. I said yes because I know it is good. What I wasn't expecting is how blessed I would be...

The first products I received (via email) were from Home School In The Woods. It was the Olde World Style Modern and Ancient Maps: World Maps AND the Old World Style Modern and Historical Maps: United States Maps. I was looking into it and realized the quality of the product. I had tears in my eyes. I was indeed blessed beyond measure and I just couldn't believe that I had a wonderful geography tool to use with my kids. I won't tell you more about it because I will write a review soon on Canadianladybug Reviews! - if you want to know more about it follow me there! Something else came up for me to review, Math Galaxy has a bunch of software to review. And from I see it looks pretty good... Then there will be Educaching which looks really cool.

So I am not worried. God will take care of us. I am blessed indeed. Thank You Lord for taking care of us, the business and homeschooling.